Nokia N800 Internet Tablet

Nokia takes a second shot at building an Internet Tablet you'll actually want …

Conclusion

My experience with the 770 in 2005 was mixed. It was like getting to know a popular but empty-headed cheerleader in high school—very nice to look at, but not a lot going on upstairs. Stretching that analogy a bit, using the N800 is like finding out that the cheerleading captain is also a straight-A student.

The best compliment that I can pay the Nokia N800 is that it feels like using a really small computer rather than a smartphone or PDA. I've spent some time using the various UMPCs available, including the Samsung Q1, and I'd rather use the N800 hands-down.

In contrast to the frustration I often felt when using the 770, the N800 was a joy to use. The expanded memory, support for SD cards, and most importantly, the beefed-up CPU eliminated the endless delays I experienced switching between applications on the 770. The N800 handles multitasking like a pro. I was able to have two or three web pages open along with a couple of other applications and performance was very smooth—even with an Internet radio stream playing. The menu system is much more intuitive, and within 15 minutes I was comfortable enough with it to navigate the menus without having to think about them.

Text input has been improved and if you write carefully, the handwriting recognition works much better than it did during the tablet's previous incarnation. I wanted to like the finger keyboard more, but was frustrated by the placement of the space bar. I ultimately ended up relying on the small stylus keyboard for most of my text entry, as I found it to be the quickest and most accurate. I was unable to get a Bluetooth keyboard to sync with the N800, but it seems to me that the N800 in conjunction with a small portable keyboard like the Nokia SU-8W would make for a very smooth note-taking machine.

Battery life was as expected—about four hours or so surfing and several days under standby.

I'd still like to see a PIM suite supplied by Nokia, but Nokia made it clear to me at CES that they're not interested in taking the N800 in that direction. There are a couple of open-source alternatives available if you do have a burning desire to turn your N800 into a PDA.

Customizing the N800's home screen is easy

That gets to the heart of what the N800 is: an Internet Tablet designed to keep you connected to your online world wherever there is a WiFi connection available. And it does remarkably well at that. I've used it on several evenings to surf the web while watching TV in the living room and it's perfect for that. I think the best way to describe the feel of using the N800 is that it's like using a very small computer rather than a PDA or smartphone. I attribute that experience to the high-resolution display and applications included with the tablet, especially Opera and Flash. I said this about the Nokia 770 and it bears updating here: the Nokia N800 by far the best Internet browsing experience of any handheld device I've ever used.

If you don't have an 802.11b/g connection nearby, you can still watch videos, listen to music, play games, read PDFs, and more, but the N800 really shines when you're kicking back and surfing the web.

The other area where the N800 has a lot of potential is Skype. The client should be available during the second quarter of 2007 and if it's a full featured Skype application, you'll be able to make phone calls from anywhere there's an accessible 802.11b/g network. If you live in a city with a municipal WiFi network, that has the potential to be extremely usable.

A few hours after this review went live, Ari Jaaksi, Nokia's head of open source software operations, posted a short-term and long-term roadmap for N800 development. In the short term, Nokia plans to work on improving Flash and video performance along with better power management. Later in 2007, Nokia plans to update Opera with "better Web 2.0 support," increased multimedia format support, easier software upgrades, and the previously announced Skype and Real Rhapsody clients. In short, the future for the N800 looks very promising.

In contrast to the 770, Nokia really nailed it with the N800. Almost all of the shortcomings have been addressed, making the Internet Tablet an absolute pleasure to use. Is it a must-have device? Not really, but I sure enjoy having one.

Pros

It's like using a really small computer

High-resolution display

Web browser

Appearance

Button layout

Performance when multitasking

Beefier hardware

Audio playing capabilities: digital music, Internet radio, and FM radio